Steer-by-Wire Test Rig

3 March 2009

Steer-by-Wire

Vehicle steering technology is evolving by substituting the mechanical and hydraulic subsystems with electrical equivalents to boost performance and enhance safety. The steer-by-wire technology provides essential advantages, such as, simplified construction and higher design flexibility at the price of redundancy and safety measures. It introduces a complex mechatronical steering technology consisting of computing units, sensors and actuators. Thereby the mechanical interface - steering column - between driver and vehicle is replaced by two electrical actuators which are algorithmically coupled by a steer-by-wire controller to provide the driver a desired steering feeling and the vehicle a desired steering response.

Steer-by-Wire Test Rig

The steer-by-wire test rig (see figure below) is designed for testing of different wheel steering concepts complemented with different force-feedback steering wheel actuators. The formerly developed harmonic drive actuator as well as the recently launched SENSO-Wheel SD-LS from SENSODRIVE company and appropriate control strategies are analysed.

Steering Wheel (SENSODRIVE)

The new version of the SENSO-Wheel SD-LC (Figure below) offers higher peak torque for even more realistic end stop simulation. The extremely high encoder resolution of 40,000 increments facilitates perfect simulation results.